Episode 4: Quick Hits - on applying positivity, whiteboards and plasma-producing rail guns with Amit Singh

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Sean spends a few minutes reflecting on resilience with Amit Singh.

CEO of startup fusion company, NearStar Fusion, Amit talks about childhood through fatherhood, learning the ropes through leading a cutting-edge energy company.

He brings a pragmatic view to approaching difficult times, yet manages to do so with an underlying optimism and kindness towards others in a kind and generous way.  

Shared Ground is produced by Sean Knierim and Allan Marks. Thanks to Cory Grabow, Kara Poltor, Corey Walles (from The Recording Studio) for your support in launching this effort.

For more stories of resilience & rebuilding, kindness & generosity: visit shared-ground.com and subscribe to Sean's substack. We invite you to share your own stories of resilience at the Shared Ground website - whether in response to the January fires in LA or other situations.

Follow us at seanknierim.substack.com, Instagram, or wherever you listen to podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc).

Episode Transcript

Amit Singh (00:02):
My name is Amit Singh.
I'm a DC resident.
I've lived here for 15 years,but I grew up in southern
Virginia.

Sean Knierim (00:09):
Amit, what are you doing now for work?

Amit Singh (00:11):
I am the CEO of New Star Fusion, which is a fusion
energy startup based inChantilly.

Sean Knierim (00:16):
Rail guns creating fusion energy.

Amit Singh (00:18):
Rail gun.
We're trying to create a fusionmachine gun using rail gun
technology that was originallydeveloped for the Star Wars
program back in the 80s.

Sean Knierim (00:27):
There's a lot of really cool fusion technologies.
This is one of the neat ones.

Amit Singh (00:31):
Thank you.

Sean Knierim (00:32):
So, as you know, we've been having conversations
with people about resilience.
So a question for you how doyou stay hopeful about the
future in nutty times?
You're fighting hard right nowfor the forces of good, but you
see tough stuff.
How do you stay hopeful?

Amit Singh (00:48):
I mean I think for me, at least in my personal
story, is that life has alwaysgotten better.
I mean, I've seen terriblethings.
You know my family's from indiaand when I've traveled there
when I was a kid, I saw extremepoverty and and uh, things that
could really change yourperspective on how things are.
And for me it's like I've seenthrough my life how things have

(01:10):
gotten better.
Now that doesn't mean thatthey're not obstacles along the
way, but I have found that ifyou address them with positivity
, that you're more likely not tojust overcome them but to
succeed and do much better thanjust trying to survive them.

Sean Knierim (01:27):
We laugh that there are no straight lines, if
we ever build a side porchourself, there won't be a single
straight line on that thing.
Can you think of any peopleactivities like what do you do
to take care of yourself, towork towards resiliency?

Amit Singh (01:43):
Well, I always I don't try to react quickly, I
try to think about what isdriving the other person or
other organization for whatthey're trying to do.
Most likely it's somewhatreasonable.

Sean Knierim (02:02):
Or at least reasonable from their
perspective.

Amit Singh (02:03):
From their perspective right, and so if you
can get creative and get to awin-win solution, then I'm not a
believer of there's a small, ofa set size pie.
I think the pie can grow and sowhen you think about the other
side and what motivates them,and you can see how that, how

(02:24):
you can come up with somethingthat works for both of you.
I think that just makes it amuch more sustainable and likely
solution for what you want toachieve.

Sean Knierim (02:32):
So, Amit, a lot of times I feel like it's not just
two sides, there's amultiplicity of sides to deal
with.
Right, how does the sameapproach apply when you've got
like five sides and a few sidesyou can't even perceive?

Amit Singh (02:49):
I'm a big fan of using whiteboards and uh, and so
when they are multiple sides, II like to write them up and and
the answer won't come to youimmediately and you know, and
there are different techniques.
You can use things like reversebrainstorming and and things
like that, where you startputting up ideas and sticky
notes and then you startresorting them and it takes time

(03:12):
.
But I do think that maybe youwon't get all five sides, but
you may get four of them orthree of them, but there's
always a better solution.

Sean Knierim (03:21):
You have an engineer's mind

Amit Singh (03:22):
yes, well, non-practicing engineer's mind
Non-practicing but still apretty good mind.
When we were talking aboutresilience over lunch, you came
up with a different concept thatyou thought was relevant and
maybe in some cases more useful.
You talked about anti-fragile.
What do you mean by that?
So anti-fragile is a concept where a system becomes

(03:43):
stronger when you stress it.
So the most common example isyour immune system.
So immune systems that areconstantly challenged become
stronger at fighting disease andwhatnot.
But that can be applied to allkinds of things accounting
systems.
Netflix has something calledChaos Monkey, where they
intentionally shut off randomservers, so their engineering

(04:04):
team has to be able to buildsystems that not only survive
that but succeed during randomoutages.

Sean Knierim (04:11):
So bring that into a community.
So if we're thinking abouthumans that are dealing with
hard stuff, how does that inyour mind?
How does that work when we'reworking with human beings?

Amit Singh (04:19):
Well, I think it goes to you know, as humans we
have reptilian brains andmammalian brains and you know,
when you're in a situation whereit's a fight or flight kind of
situation, we're using ourreptilian brain and that's the
easiest, fastest thing to do,but by using your mammalian
brain, and you know, maybeyou've been offended somehow or

(04:40):
you've been attacked, butinstead of responding in kind,
you can kind of go above andshow, be an example for how
things should be done.
I think maybe he puts the otherside in a defensive position,
like oh, that's not the responseI was expecting, and now I look
really bad because I've beenthe aggressor and the

(05:06):
connotation in that situation isI look like the bad person and
I don't want to be the badperson because I don't think of
that way.

Sean Knierim (05:13):
There's also a really embedded generosity in
what you're talking about, oftaking a moment and thinking
about where the other person'scoming from, assuming that that
person's coming from somewhere.
That's a there is a kindness inthat.

Amit Singh (05:24):
I like that yeah, and I think you you have to.
It's hard to do, it takespractice, you don't have to.

Sean Knierim (05:32):
This is a choice.
You're talking about.

Amit Singh (05:33):
I agree you don't have to, but I think if you want
to do it you have to practiceit.
You can't.
It's not going to happen thefirst time.
A lot of times, I think.
When I was younger, I grew upin southern Virginia, where I
was, all kinds of things weresaid to me and I had the choice
of then to be offended or to saythat's not my problem, that's

(05:54):
your problem and I'm going tosucceed, despite what you think.
Right on, and I think over theyears where I grew up, that
garnered a lot of respect andpeople who maybe in my younger
years had been an adversary ofsome sort became allies later.

Sean Knierim (06:10):
Right on, and now you're going to go bring that to
your kid, as they're playingsport this afternoon.
So thank you so much for takinga few minutes to talk.
Thank you for taking time.
I'm really glad to meet you.